


Light of the Sickle Moon

by Innin



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Consent Issues, F/F, Female Eöl, Femslash, Power Dynamics, Rule 63, Shameless Smut, Threesome - F/F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-13 09:51:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2146284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innin/pseuds/Innin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aredhel and Elenwë go astray in Nan Elmoth, but are welcomed by a strange inhabitant of the forest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light of the Sickle Moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LiveOakWithMoss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveOakWithMoss/gifts).



> Written for a challenge/prompt by the dear LiveOak - _well_. At least I didn't skimp on the porn, so there's that. Many thanks to Zeen for betaing this.

“We have been here before,” Elenwë mutters. “Where is your path now?”

“No, we weren’t - the trees did not have quite that girth. We must have made it all the way in,” Aredhel replies. Her voice is tight and clipped with frustration, so Elenwë does not press the matter. When the boughs begin to snatch at her hair, she dismounts and runs a hand through it before she turns to Aredhel, who ducks her head and remains mounted a moment longer. 

“I _know_ I saw a path.” Despite Aredhel’s words, there is nothing all around them except a wall of trees and thickets. Mist and shadow are pooling into shapes that allow no surety of anything, and the boughs are so heavy with withered leaves and swaying lichen that night clings between them, blotting out the stars. 

“So you’re admitting we are lost,” Elenwë says. “Nor is it entirely your fault; I could have sworn we were moving toward the forest’s edge or would have had you stop much sooner.” 

“Ought I thank you for your trust?” 

“You shouldn’t gripe at me, to begin with,” Elenwë quickly snaps back, but takes the rein of Aredhel’s horse when it’s tossed her way. “The fault lies with both of us.” 

“Fine.” Aredhel tilts her head back at the trees. “Let me climb one of these; there may be landmarks to help us find a direction. If I can only spot Estolad, or the Celon, or Himlad…” 

From below, Elenwë soon cannot make out details apart from Aredhel’s white clothes shining like a light caught in the trees. Small branches and bits of bark rain down on her, slippery and overgrown with lichen and algae. More than once she hears Aredhel scrabble and flatten herself against the bole of the tree until she is certain she won’t fall.

Once, she can’t stop a cry of alarm: Aredhel dangles by one arm on a bough high up that bends precariously, until her boots find purchase against the tree-bark rather than plummet. Then she disappears from view through the cover of leaves, and their rattle grows quiet again.

“Nothing!” the cry reaches Elenwë below eventually. “All else I can see are trees!” 

“Nothing,” she repeats once back on the forest floor, trying and failing to wipe her hands clean on the leaf cover, and Elenwë clucks her tongue. There is a long scratch along Aredhel’s cheekbone, beading blood. Aredhel wipes it away with her sleeve, unconcerned. It is stained already, and there are spiderwebs all over her. 

“There are no stars whatsoever, but the sky seems clear. We must have strayed rather far in; I could not even see to the edge of the forest,” Aredhel continues. “If daylight ever comes to this place, we may have better luck.”

“It isn’t Taur-nu-Fuin, at least,” Elenwë ventures, but her voice lacks conviction, and there is a thing that rustles and clicks in the underbrush, something enormous that makes Elenwë wish she had not spoken so soon. 

“We should take turns watching,” Aredhel says. “I would rather not think of what would lie in store for us otherwise.”

“Fire,” Elenwë says, dismounting and holding the reins of her horse in a slack hand. “I want a fire.”

That is easier said than done; all the dead wood they find without straying from one another’s sight is so old it crumbles under their touch into spongy fragments, and only kindles wrapped in the torn-out pages of Aredhel’s travel diary, and both goes up in billows of black smoke. She comments the loss of her records with a dismal noise, and Elenwë, who has already stretched out to try and rest, sits up, winding her arms about Aredhel from behind. 

Even through the fabric of both their travel dresses, she can feel the reassuring warmth of Aredhel’s skin, and Aredhel cranes her head to catch her lips in a kiss. “This is not what I’d call keeping watch,” she says against Elenwë’s opening mouth, nipping at her lower lip. Elenwë mewls and then laughs. “You looked very miserable, and I thought a kiss was a fine remedy.” 

“If my Queen says so, I will not disobey.” 

“Ah, but _my Queen_ is the one who’s currently keeping us safe with her sword and bow on her knees.” Elenwë presses a kiss on the soft skin behind her ear.

“You know such easy ways to seduce me.” It is not easy spelling out an objection when Aredhel herself is the most compelling argument to continue her caresses. Aredhel takes a moment to muster up a shred of resolve and gives Elenwë’s form a gentle push. 

“Once we have made it from this wood, gladly… but I feel as though there are eyes upon us. Something is crooked here.” A shudder runs through Aredhel’s frame when she gives word and voice to the sensation that has been nicking at Elenwë’s mind as well.

Elenwë withdraws, nodding. “I thought so - rather, I wondered. We’re in the very forest Melian enspelled. Do you _know_ what magic lingers under these trees, only waiting to find you?” 

And as though her words had conjured that up as well - between the trees, faint and almost swallowed by the mists, shines a pale light, steady and promising hope, or comfort at least.

Elenwë can feel the playful mood vanish into nothing, and she sits up staring into the colourless dark of the forest. “Írissë,” she whispers at last, and without turning away from what she has seen, digs her fingernails into Aredhel’s thigh. 

Aredhel sees it, too, following the line of Elenwë’s gaze. 

They stomp the fire out; Elenwë, still staring even though her eyes are beginning to water, utters a soft cry when something tall and dark obscures the light, only for the blink of her eye. “Something’s moved past it!” 

“It may have been anything,” Aredhel says, although Elenwë’s feels only incredulity and distrust, safer than Aredhel’s recklessness, and Elenwë needs no convincing to draw her sword as they move forward, leaving the horses by the extinguished fireplace.

The light doesn’t waver as they draw closer, and it is a relief to have a fixed point to move toward to in a straight line, rather than in a bewildering maze. There should be trees in the way, for they grow wild and unordered, but there are not as though they’ve been led onto a path on purpose. And indeed the light grows in brightness the closer they come, enough to hurt Elenwë’s eyes - and at last close enough to make out a shape. 

“A sickle moon,” says Elenwë. “But unless we’ve been here much longer than one night - a mirage? No - _a lantern?_ ” Elenwë stands blinking when the tangles of ivy reveal themselves to be climbing a wall of dark stone, a house fitted against a rock face and almost invisible in the dark, with a low window that holds the lantern. While Elenwë is still looking, Aredhel moves forward until she has reached a flight of rock-hewn, overgrown stairs leading up to the door.

Elenwë cries out. Aredhel is moving like a sleepwalker who doesn’t hear her, one tentative step before the other, until Aredhel stops before the opening door and the figure that emerges from the house - silver-haired, stooped or perhaps bowing low, and both arms spread in welcome. 

“Welcome to the House of Eöl. What is your desire?” a piercing voice asks. It scratches down Elenwë’s back like nails on slate, and when the woman lifts her eyes, their light stabs into her head like needles, much more than the lantern did.

“ _Írissë!_ ” Elenwë cries after her. Aredhel seems to have forgotten all about her - indeed ignores her and steps toward the woman to return the greeting. The sword slips from her fingers and clatters down the stairs, then she enters into the dimly-lit building.

At last Elenwë picks up the sword and follows into the house - if only for Aredhel’s sake. The woman - Telerin, by the looks of her, all silver-tall with piercing eyes, and a face too sharp and high-cheekboned to be called handsome - glides before them with inaudible steps despite the metal carapace that she wears, black and gleaming like a beetle’s, and the long black garment underneath. She should clank when she walks, at least the fabric should rustle. The way she ghosts before them makes Elenwë’s skin crawl, and her voice does little to assuage the impression. She pushes a door that swings open noiselessly, revealing -- 

\-- nothing more innocuous than a bathroom, tiled and dim with a large tub set into the floor, but Eöl - as she has named herself - gestures. “Please. Already my servants are heating water for you, and once you are bathed we shall eat. It will do you well.”

Elenwë wants to scream in answer, if only to shatter the silence that hangs like a smothering spider’s web over the house. Eöl’s hospitality, if it can truly be called that, seems to leave Aredhel unimpressed; she has not said a word since she has professed her relief at the sanctuary, though her face has turned to Eöl more than once in a dreamy-eyed gesture that is entirely unlike the lively spirit that usually possesses her. 

She steps into the bathroom after Aredhel, who begins to disrobe without a care. It is true that this is the person - one of the Queens of Gondolin - who stands at the topmost window of her tower chamber naked at times while the city sprawls beneath her - but that high above Gondolin no one will see - at times, Elenwë has even stood there with her. She would never do so while a stranger is leaning against the doorjamb, but layer by layer she is peeling herself out of the formerly white, algae-stained travel robes, and dropping them carelessly, and all Elenwë can do is to place herself into the line of sight with a suddenly-throbbing heart.

“Please leave us. It isn’t common among the Noldor to disrobe or bathe before strangers, whatever kindness they have shown.” Although still dressed in her riding garb, Elenwë crosses her arms before her chest when she catches a flash of Eöl’s teeth baring in a smile. The other woman straightens and gives Aredhel another long look before finally turning to leave.

“As you would. Let none say that Eöl does not show her guests all the courtesies within her power.”

Soon after, a servant skitters in, short and dark-haired, carrying a jar of steaming water on her shoulder that she upends into the basin, returning several times more until it is filled, then jerks her head in the direction of the water, and sets out bath-implements and towels on the basin’s edge before snatching up Aredhel’s clothes and sword, and leaving. The door falls shut heavily behind her.

“She reminds me of one of those black squirrels we saw at the forest edge yesterday - if they were made in elven form. Curious,” Elenwë muses, and although she still carries all the same misgivings, the water is offering an invitation she can’t decline. Aredhel still says nothing, merely sinking into the hot water and closing her eyes; her dark hair floats like a cloud around her. Elenwë folds her things and puts them aside, finally stepping into the piping-hot water herself, and settles down to wash. At some point the servant skitters in again to retrieve her things as well.

After a while she has to admit the water soothes her muscles, and when the door remains closed, she allows herself to relax and breathe deeply of the pungent, pine-scented steam rising in little swathes from the water. On occasion she hears Aredhel splash when she sloughs herself down, and at last she, too, quiets, rubbing a hand in soothing circles over Elenwë's shoulder-blade. Without opening her eyes, Elenwë smiles to find Aredhel - apparently - recovered. "Is that an apology?"

An affirmative murmur is the answer. "Turn around."

Elenwë yields easily, pillowing her head on the edge of the basin atop her crossed arms, and Aredhel digs her strong fingers into Elenwë's shoulders. "I truly do not know what came over me to enter a stranger's house, but it felt as though I would not endure a moment more outside in the forest."

"It’s fine," Elenwë says. The mood for an argument, and indeed most of her alarm, have been steadily fading, and made way for drowsy contentment. "This is much more pleasant than keeping watch by a miserly fire in a miserly forest. But all the same - we’ve been away from Gondolin for a long time, and Idril must be tired of sitting the throne in our absence.” Before Aredhel can laugh these cares away, she presses on. “It may not seem urgent, but I’d rather we depart at daybreak - and in the meantime we’ll be careful with this Eöl; I do not trust her to behave honourably. The way she watched you reminded me of nothing so much as a wolf, and you’d walk straight into her open jaws."

Aredhel's hands still. They have strayed a little lower. "Are you jealous of her?"

Elenwë waits until three slow breaths have passed before she answers, lest she seems hurried and insincere. She would rather drink the entirety of the tub than admit to a childish emotion. “No,” she says. 

“Good,” Aredhel drawls, and bends over her to kiss down the ridges of her spine. “Because there is no reason. Short of an enchantment, nothing would make me leave your side.” 

It is not as much of a comfort as Aredhel seems to think it, instead it reminds Elenwë of their conversation in the forest, the mention of Melian’s magic, and the strange path they ought to have seen before the lantern was lit - and Aredhel seems to notice something - with her lips still on Elenwë’s body, perhaps an involuntary tensing of muscles, because she withdraws. 

“You do not honestly think she put an enchantment upon me.” Aredhel’s voice is incredulous, even a little tinged with hurt, following Elenwë’s silence. 

“I’d prefer that thought to the alternative, I think. You were very open flaunting your charms to her.” 

“No more so than in the baths in Gondolin; last I knew it was quite common to disrobe in order to bathe. You _are_ jealous.”

“But she isn’t Idril or Meleth - nor me. She is a stranger. Írissë…” 

“It’s no use trying that name on me now. I am finished bathing. The water is getting very cool, and I think our host was kind enough to offer us a meal as well.” 

She rises and stands raining a shower of droplets back into the water, and has not yet reached for a towel when the door opens in a rush of the cold, metallic air that permeates the rest of the house. Elenwë sees Aredhel’s skin rise into goosebumps, for the change of temperature - or under Eöl’s rapt, bright gaze.

All of Elenwë’s misgivings have returned. Against them she, too, rises, and stands shivering and furious, bare to Eöl’s eyes, who turns to her with a raised brow, a sweep of lashes over her cheekbone, and then smiles and bares her teeth, white and sharp and gleaming. 

“I wondered,” Eöl says. “Very well. Come. Clothes have been laid out for you.” 

They dry in a hurry, while Eöl continues to watch them, and Elenwë feels her gaze press down upon every portion of her naked skin. She is glad to move to the guest chamber across the corridor, close the door against the prying eyes, and swathe herself in clothes again. It is not her own dress, rather the same nondescript garb Eöl’s servant wore; a shift of un-dyed linen cool on her skin and a little short; the hem barely covers Elenwë’s ankles. Aredhel looks at her and grimaces.

“We look like her servants.” 

“I don’t think that was unintentional. The mistress of the house seems to like having us at her disposal. She could easily part with two of her shifts for the time we remain, but instead we are given this.” 

Now that Eöl’s eyes are off her, Aredhel is once more - if not entirely - like her usual self; she even has the nerve to try and make light of the situation. “At least it is more my colour. I would hate to wear black.” 

For the first time since they have entered the forest, Elenwë snorts with something approaching amusement and leans in to peck a quick kiss on Aredhel’s lips. It isn’t returned. “The White Lady of the Noldor, of course. Her vanity can’t go unsatisfied.”

“Not only her vanity,” says Aredhel, and just enough time elapses for the entendre. “Her stomach also needs satisfying.” Without another look back at Elenwë she walks from the room, her bare feet slapping onto the cold tiles, to find the promised dinner in the dim maze of corridors.

When they at last reach the kitchen, full of stinging smoke and lit by the glow of embers in the hearth, the table has been laid with a veritable feast. Elenwë takes honey, butter, and bread that tastes of beechnuts, but rather than fill her stomach or offer any sweetness, she might as well be chewning ashes. Aredhel goes under again, grown silent and absent beneath Eöl’s eyes. Eöl eats by squeezing berries between her lips until their juices stain them - too dark to be blood, but Elenwë feels her stomach twist at the thought and pushes her plate away.

Aredhel gives her a sidelong look and eats another bite of the strange wet-leather mushrooms that are also on the table. The odd black things make squelching noises between her teeth during Aredhel’s oblivious chewing, until Elenwë wants to slap the fork from her hand and make her spit them out. She has never quite gotten over the revulsion of the mushrooms the Sindar brought into Gondolin and that have become a staple in many kitchens, remembering how they grow on dead things foremost, and how some deadly specimens so closely resemble edible kinds. In this forest, with this hostess, where even the bread is inedible, trust for less innocuous food is not something she can muster.

Another berry pops between Eöl’s lips.

“They are not in season,” says Elenwë, studying the berries still scattered on Eöl’s plate. Bilberries, raspberries, even blackberries. “It is too early.” 

“You are in my forest. What I will grows at my behest; it is mine to decide what comes and goes,” snaps Eöl. “And who. We are done.” 

She claps her hands, and another servant - not the squirrel-girl from before, this woman is taller, her hair a deep, rich brown, and she moves with less of the other woman’s erratic alarm - emerges from a spot in the shadows to begin clearing the table. The look she gives Elenwë and Aredhel is one of deep disdain - jealousy, perhaps. Elenwë rolls her shoulders and shakes her head.

“Follow me,” says Eöl, walking from the kitchen. 

It takes Elenwë composure she did not know she possessed to put one foot before the other. It is made no easier by not knowing what awaits them.

Aredhel seems to have no compunctions to do so, moving along the corridor with the outrageous, dancing sway of her hips that she sometimes uses to press her advantages; Elenwë has seen it work on more than one of the lords and ladies of the city - and then been able to laugh it off easily. Now it makes cold anger roil in her, and instead of admiring the view it poses, she speeds up her step until she is walking beside Aredhel and can sling an arm around her middle. 

Their hips bump. Aredhel gives her a look as though she has only just noticed Elenwë’s presence, too addled to have eyes for anything but Eöl, more likely than not, Elenwë thinks. If there is no enchantment upon Aredhel, then she cannot say what is.

Before them, Eöl pushes open a door, revealing behind the room with the sickle-moon lantern. It hangs unlit in the dark window now, but Eöl needs only snap her long, thin fingers, and the flame in it springs again to life. The rest of the room remains dim and shadows creep in the corners, but in the gloom Elenwë can make out a bed with a twisted metal frame, certainly wide enough for all three of them. The purpose of Eöl’s pretense at hospitality, so far only a future threat, becomes grounded in reality at the sight of the room at last. Eöl doesn’t need to spell out desire in speech when it is so plain in her actions.

Elenwë stands. A sick feeling churns at the bottom of her stomach, and she wants nothing more than to take Aredhel by the hand and seek to run, even knowing it is pointless - even if they were to escape from the house, the forest scratching at the windows from without would surely grant them very little aid.

Aredhel has already followed Eöl into the bedroom. 

Still Elenwë stands, watching while her fists clench: Eöl bends to put her lips to Aredhel’s ear, and whatever it is she is saying, Aredhel’s pupils widen, her lips open into a perfect shape of surprised arousal; she bites them - and nods, going to sit against the headboard of the bed. 

Eöl follows, nudges her legs apart and kneels between them, to kiss Aredhel slowly, indulgently, sloppily in a way Elenwë would not have believed the strange woman to be capable of, until Aredhel’s arms sling around her, and slide down the strange black carapace, leaving a shining, iridescent trail, her skin still moist from the bath. Eöl looks more than ever like a beetle, a spider, a _thing_ that creeps in the forest under rotted leaves. Elenwë moves forward when the touches grow more intimate, stepping over the threshold finally. 

She intends to allow no more, not when Aredhel is in that state. 

Not when she herself is responding to the sight, as much as it repulses her.

Before she has the chance to yank Aredhel’s hand away, she hears a murmured _sleep_ in Eöl’s scratchy voice, but not directed at her. Then Aredhel’s hand goes slack in hers, and when Elenwë starts shaking her to wake, she finds that Eöl is much heavier than she looks - and much stronger. A brief, futile struggle, and she finds herself pinned to the mattress, and both her wrists caught in one of Eöl’s hands. The nails of those spidery fingers are digging painfully into her flesh, and the cold metal carapace presses into her stomach through the servant’s shift.

For a moment, all she can do is to keep breathing. 

Then Eöl turns the light of her eyes onto Elenwë. “You - you may think me evil, but I know the minds of the likes of you - not a _Golda_ and slayer of my kin, worse still, a _Minna_ , the golden folk always foremost clamouring to leave these shores. And now that you are returned, the most jealous of all, not because you love this land, but because you are afraid of it and want to tame it until all is ruined and civilized - even what does not belong to you. Even _me_. Slay me, perhaps, with your golden hands? But me at least you shall not conquer, so guileless who claim such wisdom, and with all the enchantments that slid off you as water from a bird’s wing, take comfort at least in knowing that your friend was merely a means to an end. I hate you more than her.” 

Elenwë feels cold shudder through her under Eöl’s gaze. The woman slips a spindly hand under her shift, and scratches a fingernail down between Elenwë’s breasts, leaving a red scour there - and quicker than thought, Eöl pinches her nipple and twists until Elenwë cries out.

“I have… I was born in the land of the Powers, in Valmar of Many Bells, their very _city_ ,” Elenwë says, and hates how unsteady her boast, true as it is, sounds under the pulses of pain and fear. “I learned to walk untouched among their enchantments until love drove me to leave, and I’ve seen more light in the blink of an eye than your miserable forest in all its time of growth. I have _never_ taken a life. You talk of conquering - if you mean to conquer me, then _try_.” 

For a moment it seems that Eöl intends to strike her, but then her eyes flicker to Aredhel again, still moveless on the bed and limp as a doll, and she lowers her fist. “I see through you. You have a weakness. You are in _no_ position to challenge me.”

Elenwë knows it is true - but she did not sit one of the thrones of Gondolin and learn nothing at all from it, even through the cold terror that Aredhel may be harmed. Yielding may rob Eöl’s victory of its triumph. It may protect Aredhel. Elenwë knows how to bargain, and she has never made such a foolish one. 

“And what - what if it isn’t a challenge - but a promise? You’ll have your desire. You could have _both of us_ , if you wake her and she consents of her own will, rather than under your whispers - and you shall do with me what you will if you leave her unharmed and let her go unhindered in the morning.”

Eöl’s eyes fix themselves upon Elenwë; for a moment they flash with surprise. “You would ransom yourself to me for her sake?”

“I would.” It is in violation of all her principles, all her ideas of trust and love - or would be, if not for Aredhel. She knows it is no guarantee that Aredhel will be unharmed, because she would be the best weapon to hurt Elenwë with - but if she pleases Eöl… perhaps. It is her best and only chance.

“Then so be it.” 

Eöl is unceremonious in her disdain. She orders Elenwë to strip, and while she does, procures a rope from her bedside drawer, pushes Elenwë onto her back against the twisted metal of the headboard and her arms over her head. Elenwë’s wrists are lashed to the metal, with Eöl pausing only to make sure that the knots hold, rather than inquire after Elenwë’s comfort. Then she drags her hand over Aredhel’s eyes and tells her to wake. 

Aredhel does, with a soft groan that goes right to Elenwë’s heart. 

“Írissë. Írissë, speak to me,” she says insistently, and Aredhel’s clear grey eyes fly open. 

“Elenwë? What… the _dream_. I did not think...” 

“It only seemed to be a dream,” Eöl’s voice cuts in when Aredhel touches her lips, still reddened from the kiss. A few scarce words inform her of the intent and purpose of the night. Eöl says, “You will leave in the morning.” 

Presented with the choice and no alternative, Aredhel bites her lip. “No. No, I shall not. Elenwë and I - I will not abandon her.” 

“I did not agree to this for you to squander your chance,” Elenwë says harshly. “Return home in the morning!” 

“No.” Elenwë knows that tone; Aredhel is immovably certain, and there is no use arguing any further. Eöl, who stands by the bed with a twisted, unpleasant smirk on her face. “Then stay and participate. It was part of her bargain, and to have both of you will be… pleasant.” 

The words are innocuous, for Eöl, but Elenwë sees Aredhel’s brows knit. 

“If you agreed,” Elenwë explains. “I had hoped you’d leave, not insist to stay. I did not bargain you away against your will.” Elenwë yanks against her bonds. Aside from getting loose, she wants nothing more to have her hands free to comfort Aredhel, now seeming lost - but she does not dare spell out that it is Eöl, it is all Eöl, intending to divide them, perhaps for no other reason than to cause them pain. She hopes Aredhel is shrewd enough to recognize that even without having been conscious to hear Eöl’s intent. 

“It is no matter,” Aredhel says, and under her breath she adds, looking straight at Elenwë, in a way that makes Elenwë’s breath catch. “You beautiful idiot. You did not truly think I would leave you, did you? We should get this over with.” There is a promise in that look, too, that Elenwë first saw in her youth, before she ever met, and perhaps loved, Turukáno. _We shall make this pleasant. Wait and see._

Selfishly, Elenwë is grateful now that Aredhel refused to leave. With her there, and Aredhel’s habit to assume authority in the bedroom as easily as on the training field, perhaps she will even keep Eöl in check somewhat. Now, Aredhel slips out of the servant shift, reaches for her hands, kissing and massaging some feeling back into Elenwë’s fingers. They warm and prickle, and the marks on her wrists where the rope has been pulled taut begin to throb.

Eöl, who has for the moment left them to their own devices to disrobe, watches from the corner of the room while she undoes the clasps holding her carapace closed. “Leave her there,” she orders Aredhel. “I want her tied.” 

Aredhel huffs without mirth, moving only far enough to satisfy the barest distance between them. 

A final rustle of cloth as Eöl steps from her fallen undershift, and she rejoins them by the bed. Elenwë tries not to look too closely - this woman is their captor, this woman is not to be trusted, but if they are to do this… Elenwë looks.

Eöl is tall and whip-thin, with the angles on her body as sharp as those on her face. Her arms and shoulders ripple with muscles that remind Elenwë of none so much as Nerdanel, and the burn-scars that riddle her arms leave no other conclusion - she must be a smith. Her breasts are taut and small, as free of the marks of growth and pregnancy as the rest of her body. There is something cohesive to her figure that makes Elenwë think how everything superfluous has been pared from her. If not beautiful, then Eöl is as close to that as her demeanour fails to make her.

She moves toward the bed, and almost Elenwë wants to cover her own, softer body, the dun-gold of her skin from Eöl’s wolfish gaze, and it is then that Aredhel rises and puts herself in the way. 

Half, Elenwë worries that Aredhel is slipping under the spell again, but she glances back at Elenwë winking - the gall she has - and her movements are too decisive and flirtatious to be a coerced, mechanical thing - intent to turn the tables, Elenwë recognizes with a sudden laugh that she can barely stifle. Under Aredhel’s eager assault, it seems Eöl is the one out of her depth, with a hand raised stiffly over Aredhel’s shoulder but not touching, until, with a murmur, Aredhel closes the distance. 

From her angle, Elenwë cannot fully see Eöl’s face - only her eyes, closing under Aredhel’s ministrations, the brush of lips along the sharp jaw-line, the scratch of teeth. Eöl’s fingers curl and uncurl against Aredhel’s shoulder, and if it is an attempt to push her away, it is wholly unconvincing. Eöl’s eyelids twitch, at last she issues a sigh and knots her hand into Aredhel’s hair when she makes to pull away, yanking her close again. 

It makes Elenwë wonder if Eöl is familiar with gentleness when it is wielded against her, not a tool at her disposal. She does not think so. 

They continue kissing, and it seems Aredhel is working her very own magic. Under her hands Eöl’s rigidity becomes pliant, and although Eöl makes no other sound after the strange sigh, the high colour in her cheeks betrays her response. The scene before Elenwë - Aredhel now turning her attention on Eöl’s neck, sucking the hollow of her throat hard enough to leave a deep mark that will indubitably bruise - makes her twist her hands against her bonds, makes her press her hips into the mattress for some friction. 

Heat, not quite shame, shivers along her nerves when the realization hits that Eöl had the truth of it.

She enjoys seeing Eöl overmastered, made harmless. 

“Írissë,” she says, her voice rough and demanding even to her own ears. “Don’t leave me out. Bring her here.”

“No,” Eöl snarls, without opening her eyes. “Wait your turn.” Her fingers run over the side of Aredhel’s face, over the red scratch from her tree-climbing adventure. Aredhel makes a noise of protest, a warning nip at Eöl’s mouth. The mood is broken, has shifted. Elenwë feels something flutter in her stomach. 

Eöl and Aredhel are, perhaps, equally strong - Eöl and her corded whip-like figure, Aredhel half a head shorter and broader, but with an athlete’s muscles -- but it is Eöl again who twists her head back by the hair, and now her fingers tighten in earnest, pull Aredhel around and close against her like a shield, so they both face Elenwë now, and Aredhel’s body is open to her view; already sweat is trickling between her breasts and down the stretch of her stomach. They catch the light from the window lantern and turn into glowing trails. Aredhel is beautiful, even with her head yanked back against Eöl’s shoulder and her breath shallow against the vice of Eöl’s grip. Eöl leers down at Aredhel, at them both. 

“Watch well,” Aredhel says, as though the idea was hers and the situation of her own devising, before Eöl has yet made her move. There is more than one way of overmastering, more than only gentleness, and Aredhel has never been averse to rougher games, when the mood struck her. She chuckles, perhaps at the look on Elenwë’s face - truly, she cannot gauge what she must look like with the situation so rapidly shifting.

Aredhel’s eyes are wide and dark and intent. “Elenwë - this is for your pleasure, and if I see that you respond -- I shall do it to you at the soonest opportunity. I shall fuck you as I hope Eöl shall fuck m-- _ah_!”

Eöl bites down hard on Aredhel’s shoulder, and shoves two fingers of her free right hand into her. Elenwë can see them vanish between Aredhel’s legs, sees the wetness coating Eöl’s knuckles when they emerge again, the tremor of a muscle in Aredhel’s thigh when Eöl pulls her legs apart and rolls her clit between her fingers, laves her tongue over the bite mark.

“It is not your place to tell me what to do.”

Aredhel does not answer in words - but she is unabashedly vocal, always has been, even when one of her thrill-seeking moods has managed to sweep them both into one of Gondolin’s public gardens, barely concealed from the eyes of passersby and not barrier at all for any sound she’d make, sounds that Elenwë has so often swallowed against her own lips that she knows them intimately and leaves her no doubt that Aredhel, too, has found a way to enjoy it, though she hangs half-undone in Eöl’s grasp, now wholly shining with sweat and her knees near buckling. 

Elenwë has no doubt that Eöl is doing to Aredhel precisely what Aredhel wants done. Beautiful does not begin to describe her. 

There also is no doubt that Eöl knows how close she is to wringing a climax from Aredhel. Her eyes flicker when Aredhel arches her back, when Aredhel grinds down against her fingers, mewls. The sound spikes straight through her, along a surge of jealousy - it is a boon that she can see Aredhel as she has never done before, but it should be her there, it should be her fingers, her lips, not Eöl’s.

“Stop,” Elenwë says, then louder over the unholy noise Aredhel is making, a long, low, shuddering moan. “Stop.” 

And Eöl stops, lifts her head, looks at her, considering. Smirks.

And takes away her hand. 

A push from Eöl, and Aredhel moves toward the bed on unsteady legs, collapses along Elenwë, and glares at her through wide eyes. “I should…” Her body radiates heat, and it seems, for a moment, that she has trouble finishing the thought. Elenwë cannot blame her; this close her body and the scent on it are more maddening than through the distance of the room, and if Aredhel were to touch her now, Elenwë would make no promises to last very long. “... spank you for interrupting, if I were not…” 

“... so close?” Elenwë laughs softly in expectation when Aredhel’s hands go to the knots on her wrists, scrabble and slide off them and still on her rapid pulse. 

“So close.” With a grin that is entirely retaliatory and entirely too mischievous for Aredhel’s own good, she abandons the attempt, glancing up only briefly at Eöl who has come to stand by the bed and watch. “But I think you are indeed precisely where you should be.” Instead of untying her, Aredhel comes to kiss her deeply, all warm, soft, yielding lips interspersed with short nips, the maddening scratch of teeth against her lower lip that Elenwë so loves. “I shall make certain that you know how it is I feel.” 

“That’s a promise?” Elenwë says against Aredhel’s mouth. 

“It _is_ a promise,” murmurs Aredhel, pulls away, and slides between Elenwë’s spread legs. The friction of skin along her thighs, the pressure and the weight atop her, Aredhel slippery against her, her digits rubbing circles in between - it is enough to make Elenwë writhe for more, closer, near enough to undoing that she cannot bite back noises that parch her very throat, makes them against the mark on Aredhel’s shoulder, muffles them against her breasts, savors the taste of skin and sweat. 

The only thing missing - touch. She wants to interlock fingers with Aredhel, fuck her that way as Eöl did - Eöl, who is still standing by the bed, a pale presence from the corner of Elenwë’s eye when they fly open after a particular twist of Aredhel’s fingers, but seems to take that look as invitation, reminder, Elenwë is not certain which. 

It doesn’t matter. 

Suddenly Eöl’s wet fingers flex around her shoulders, push Elenwë down into the cushions and Aredhel aside. Her thighs fold down on either side of Elenwë’s head, the pale skin flushed deep pink and thrown into shadow as Eöl lowers herself and rocks her hips forward onto Elenwë’s face, against her mouth, smears over her jaw, leaving no doubt that whatever her inscrutable mien was hiding, it was not impassivity to the events of the night.

“You wanted to master me,” says Eöl, her voice rough and almost triumphant. “See if you can.”

Invisible to her, Aredhel has slid down and resumes her attention. Elenwë gasps against Eöl’s thigh, sucks in more of the scent that already lies thick on her tongue, turns her head slightly, and flicks her tongue upwards against the bitter-salty taste, feels the tightening of muscles against her cheeks. Not only Aredhel is close, not only Elenwë herself is close - so is Eöl. And Elenwë may be a stranger to her, but not to this - does not even find it as humiliating as Eöl must have thought she would. She laps wetly as though she’s trying to slake her thirst, she hums low in her throat and presses her tongue inward until a light-headed rush makes her gasp for air, until Eöl is trembling above her with her hands braced against the headboard, her head sags forward with the bright eyes eclipsed into a corona around her pupils and her long silver hair spilling downward onto Elenwë’s face. 

Then Aredhel below shifts again, reaches up from behind, and Elenwë presses a messy kiss to her hand, cannot help thinking that _yes_ , Eöl shall be mastered, shall be mastered _completely_. 

She is, shortly. It doesn’t take more than a final stroke of Elenwë’s tongue and Aredhel’s fingers until she grinds down onto Elenwë’s mouth, tenses near to snapping point, and curses in a harsh, dark language between lips bitten bloody to keep in whatever gasps and moans she might have uttered otherwise. 

Eöl rolls off Elenwë and falls onto her back, with her eyes closed and her face gleaming with sweat, her chest heaving and sinking with gasps. And there is still Aredhel, leaning over Elenwë with the gleam of mischief in her eyes as she bends down to kiss her, murmuring, “Give me a taste.” 

For them both that is the tipping point, Aredhel’s moan the final thing that crests the night into a white-heat glow that sets Elenwë alight along her bones into momentary, weightless relief. 

How long it is before Aredhel rouses her, Elenwë can’t say; it is the easing of pressure on her wrists and Aredhel’s hands massaging life back into her arms that calls her back into awareness. Aredhel kisses her cheek, tickles her with the discarded rope before kicking it out of the way, and whispers, “I saw stars tonight, but one in particular, the dearest and brightest and most beloved.” 

Elenwë laughs softly, feeling new heat rising into her cheeks, and if her arms and shoulders were not so sore and still prickling might swat her with a pillow for the wordplay. Instead she nestles against Aredhel’s stretched-out body, and her eyes fall upon Eöl sleeping beside them, pale against the sheets and oblivious to all the world. She is curled into the same shape as the sickle moon still hanging in the window, dimming before the backdrop of the rising light of the morning above the twisted trees. 

Elenwë draws a sheet over her, and Eöl pulls it closer without waking. 

“We should leave,” Elenwë says, with something almost akin to pity for the strange woman, rather than the outright revulsion of the beginning of her encounter - overmastered after all. “I’m tired… but I would rather be out of this forest before she resolves to keep us here.” 

Aredhel nods, her face inscrutable while she studies Eöl. “Let us find our clothes and horses and be gone. It will be easier to track our trail back now that it is lighter out, and she will not trouble our path - if our luck holds, not until we have left Nan Elmoth.” 

“But we won’t tell a soul of her,” Elenwë decides with another look at the sleeping woman. “Let this be a lesson to her not to prey on travellers again… my heart tells me that if she does, she’ll come to an evil end. But let us also not punish her for this night. Gondolin is no more hidden than she is, and we would do well to remember that we only seek to protect our own, ourselves.” 

Aredhel gives her an odd look. “Compassion, for her?” 

“No,” Elenwë says, slowly and decisively, rubbing her chafed wrist, passing her hand over her sore jaw and wishing for water to wash her face. “Not after all this, and no love lost - but understanding, perhaps. It doesn’t matter. Let her have this,” and she gestures at the room, the lantern, its light. “Let us go home while we can.”


End file.
